One photonic device commonly employed in an optoelectronic integrated circuit is a waveguide which may transmit, modulate, detect and optionally multiplex optical signals. Silicon and/or polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon) materials are well suited as cores for such waveguides for short distance optical signal transmission, modulation, multiplexing and to some extent optical signal detection. However, for transmission over distances longer than 1 cm, other core materials with lower loss optical transport are more desirable. In the case of photonic waveguide integration, polysilicon material at the transistor gate level of an integrated optoelectronic circuit may be used as the waveguide core. To date, a polysilicon waveguide loss of 10 dB/cm has been the lowest achieved loss in the 1.3 μm wavelength (λ) range, which is often employed for optical communications. Further research may reduce this number to the order of 5 dB/cm. Such a loss value is acceptable for most functions of a photonic waveguide, other than routing the optical signals across a cm-scale chip. For such longer distances, it is desirable to use a lower loss waveguide having a different core material. The material properties and physical location of such a lower loss waveguide generally limits its use for any purpose beyond guiding light in a mostly straight line. Accordingly, a need exists for a waveguide structure which has a lower transmission loss path for longer distances, and which can also provide an easily routed path for guiding light in other than a straight line over shorter distances.